Toreros outlook: Johnny Dee, the sophomore guard out of Rancho Buena Vista High, has played in all 55 games since arriving at USD. He has missed only one start, that because head coach Bill Grier wanted Darian Norris to start last year on Senior Night. But Dee’s perfect attendance is in jeopardy after suffering a sprained left ankle Monday night at LMU. Dee has watched practice the past two days. On Wednesday, Dee said he thought he could play but was cautious. “My trainer and Coach (Bill Grier) said their biggest concern is re-aggravating the injury. They don’t want me to risk anything that would make me have to sit out longer.” If Dee sits, senior Cameron Miles is expected to start.

The opponent with mad hops pump faked, put his defender in the air, then drove baseline, intent on slam dunking his way to the basket.

But across the lane, 15-year-old Jito Kok hovered. Kok slid over, elevated, then slapped the ball against the glass. The home Italian crowd booed, its favorite player knocked to the floor.

“The place exploded,” said Kok. “It was so loud.”

No foul was called and Kok, who lived in The Netherlands at the time, smiled, relishing the first memorable rejection of his young life.

“When I see the ball go up,” said Kok, now a 6-foot-9, 225-pound USD freshman, “I’m thinking, ‘They’re not allowed to score. I’m going to try to get that thing out of here.’”

USD hosts BYU at 7 tonight inside the Jenny Craig Pavilion, and the athletic Kok is beginning to turn Toreros games into a block party.

Still just 18 years old, Kok has played in all 24 games, starting two, averaging nearly 18 minutes. His 42 blocks are a USD freshman record and leads the WCC. Should he continue at his current pace and the Toreros play at least one game in the conference tournament, he’ll finish with 56 blocks.

The single-season school record: 55, set by Crawford High product Dondi Bell in 1988-89.

Regarding the possibility of breaking the record, Kok, sitting courtside after a practice, broke into a wide smile, then said, “That would just, for me, probably be the biggest achievement of my life.”

How Kok arrived at Alcala Park is a fascinating story unto itself. Thirteen months ago head coach Bill Grier dispatched assistant Kyle Bankhead to a tournament in Rhode Island.

Bankhead’s mission: find an athletic, defensive-minded big man.

Playing in the tournament was the Canarias Basketball Academy, which is based in the Canary Islands off the northwestern tip of Africa.

The academy is run by Rob Orellana, a former Fullerton State assistant, and designed to prepare European and African teenagers to play college basketball in the United States.

In practice, if a player didn’t dive for a loose ball, workouts stopped. Everyone but the offending player was given a ball. One by one, teammates threw the ball to the opposite end of the floor. The punished player would sprint, dive on the ball, sprint back then repeat the drill until everyone had thrown a ball.

“It’s harsh,” said Kok. “When you’re done, your elbows, the skin is falling off. But now that I’m here, when there’s a loose ball, you jump on the floor. It’s burned into your brain.”

Bankhead returned from Rhode Island and thus began an atypical long-distance recruiting game, primarily via social media and phone calls.

“The Internet connection there wasn’t the best,” said Grier. “He didn’t have a cellphone. Contact was kind of hit and miss.”

Raised in Holland where winters can be brutally cold, Kok liked the thought of walking about the USD campus, year-round, wearing shorts. Serious about academics, he liked the private school’s small class sizes.

But first, he had a request. He wanted to meet Grier. So two weeks after last season, Grier flew to the Canary Islands.

Kok and the head coach hit it off and a couple weeks later, having never visited San Diego, Kok committed to USD, relaying the news via Facebook.

Less than six months after arriving on campus, Kok is popular with teammates, partly because of his upbeat nature and because he bails them out on the defensive end.